


tell me that it's not my fault (even when i break your heart)

by daisyjohnsons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Happy Ending?, Lincoln POV, Protective Melinda May, Season 3, angst and Drama!, daisy :(, im never writing lincoln pov ever again it makes me too insane, im not kidding i had to take breaks every five minutes, oh in italics, rated t for language and also aos typical violence, twitter inspired!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26415598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyjohnsons/pseuds/daisyjohnsons
Summary: If he’s going to die, going by Daisy’s hand is how he wants to leave. The irony of being killed by the person he needs to live is something that makes him crack a smile. The smile breaks when his lip splits.or, lincoln does go on that quinjet and daisy is there to meet him
Relationships: Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	tell me that it's not my fault (even when i break your heart)

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii :D tws for this include aos typical violence, blood draining mention, thoughts about death, and severe injuries. please let me know if i missed any!!  
> title is from afterglow by taylor swift!

Lincoln has always felt like he belongs to violence.

Maybe it’s because he only feels anger when he drinks. Maybe it’s because his want to be a doctor was born from sparks raining down around him and blood on his hands. Maybe it’s because his anger is his purpose, his drive, his reason. Maybe it’s the feeling of an armory in between his ribs, at the tips of his fingers, beneath his lips. 

He doesn’t know, but when he fights and his hands glow blue with _power,_ it feels right.

At least, it usually does.

He knows what his job is. Keep Daisy occupied while the others finish setting their plan to get her back into motion. He’s the only one powerful enough to stand a chance, and the only one Daisy would hesitate to kill.

(to _kill,_ because it has come to that. he has had to accept that daisy isn’t _his_ daisy right now, not that she belongs to him, but she isn’t the daisy he thinks of every night before he falls asleep or the daisy he thinks of when he opens his eyes and reaches for the spot on the bed that should be warm)

And here she is, standing in front of him, and she looks _excited_ to see him. She walks towards him, tentative, but in her eyes there’s _hope,_ and it’s tearing Lincoln apart by the second.

But he has a job to do if he wants to get her back. The _real_ her.

So he walks down the ramp of the Quinjet and when she holds out her arms, he takes her into his and despite how much he is trying to resist falling for this, he feels the tension in his shoulders that has been there since he realized Daisy was infected fading. 

_I can enjoy this,_ he thinks. _As long as I know it’s fake._

He tucks his nose into the crook of her neck, breathes in deep, and his arms instinctively ighten around her waist. He feels a soft laugh against his neck and has to hurriedly blink away tears. 

“I didn’t think you would come,” she says after she steps back. He takes this moment to look at her, _really_ look at her, and she looks even worse in person than she did on a screen. 

“Daisy—” his voice breaks and he has to clear his throat and start over. “Daisy, what happened? You’re…. You’re so _pale_.”

She shrugs, as if she doesn’t look like a walking corpse. “It’s okay, Hive is using my blood for something greater.”

Lincoln feels the sentence hit him like a punch to the gut.

“I—He’s _what_?” 

“He’s using my blood to create more inhumans.” Her voice is entirely nonchalant and casual and Lincoln has never craved violence so badly in his _life._ “Like I said, something greater.”

He takes a breath, tries to keep the anger from his voice, fails because this is the girl he loves so _fucking_ much and she’s giving herself away to someone who doesn’t care if she lives or dies and she’s not even doing it willingly, she’s doing it because of his _fucking_ sway and Lincoln’s chest _hurts_ with his rage. “Daisy, how much has he drained?”

She raises an eyebrow, cocks her head. “Lincoln, why are you angry? He’s going to create more of _us._ It’s amazing! They’re not very pleasing to the eye, but—”

“Daisy no, no,” he snaps, unable to stop himself. “Daisy I’m a doctor, and it doesn’t even take a doctor to know that this is _killing_ you.” 

“If it does, then I deserve it! I failed him! I let Mack destroy the Kree soldier, so of course I should let him drain me!”

It hurts so much, Lincoln has to turn around. He can’t look at her, his Daisy with so much hope in her eyes, with dark circles and a hollow face and pale skin, with nothing but genuine concern and regret in her voice. A hand lands on his shoulder and he shakes it off before thinking because he _can’t_ look at her, or he’ll go and murder Hive and he’ll die because he won’t stand a chance, but he almost thinks it’ll be worth it to even just _hurt_ him because he’s hurting _Daisy_ and—

She steps in front of him and the genuine concern and insistence on her face is ungodly painful. “Lincoln, sacrifices have to be made! I’m okay with this, why can’t you be?”

“Because I can’t lose you, Daisy! I can’t!”

She softens, despite his yelling, and holds out a hand and presses it to his cheek. He can’t hold back the tears that the touch brings, but Daisy wipes them away. “Lincoln, you won’t. Don’t you get it? We’re all together here. You won’t lose me.”

He knows May will kill him for not sticking it out longer, but if he pretends for even a second longer that he’s going along with this bullshit, he’s going to break.

“Daisy, look around.” He can see it in her face, can see that she’s begun to understand what’s happening here, because that’s Daisy, cunning and clever as hell. “I already _have._ I’m just trying to get you back before it’s too late.”

“You’re here with S.H.I.E.L.D., aren’t you?” She says, the realization turning her face dark, and Lincoln is too tired of pretending to try and say no. “How could you? I trusted you to come alone. Do you have any idea what Hive will do when he finds out you betrayed us?

“ _Us?_ Daisy, are you even hearing yourself? We aren’t an us and we _can’t_ be, not until you come back.” Lincoln steps forward and he’s tried this before but Daisy looks so broken and he can’t help it. He cradles her face and brushes their noses, and the tear she sheds is like a knife to the heart. “Daisy, please come back. _Please_. I can’t do this without you.”

Daisy kisses him, suddenly, harshly, and for a blissful, naive moment, he thinks it worked. He thinks the stories he heard as a child about the power of love were true all along. He thinks, _my love for someone was pure enough and powerful enough to_ save _them._

She quakes him into the quinjet, and the truth hurts more than the metal.

“It’s just like sparring her,” he mutters as he gets to his feet, “except if she pins me, she’s killing me, not kissing me. This is fine.”

She runs at him, throws a punch that he barely dodges, and this fight is so unnatural because it’s _Daisy_ , but violence and power run through his bloodstream, a ceaseless race that will only end when he dies, and for the first time in _years_ , he lets them free. 

“You’re stalling,” she snarls after a moment. She has Lincoln by the throat, which is very uncomfortable and probably bad for his back, considering how short she is. 

Lincoln only scoffs, says, “no I’m not. You are,” and flips her over his shoulder. She slams to the ground and he moves to put a hand over her chest, hoping to knock her out with a quick, well measured shock, but she headbutts him and sends him stumbling back. 

He throws the first punch this time once he’s regained his balance, Daisy blocks it with a short quake, he sends a bolt of electricity, she quakes him into a wall. 

“This definitely isn’t good for my back,” he calls, hoping to catch her off guard with a bit of humor, one of her own tactics. 

“Then quit and _join us_ ,” Daisy snaps. 

Lincoln pants as he gets to his feet. “Are there pizza roll nights here?” Daisy stops in her tracks. “No pizza roll nights then? Fuck no.” He uses her momentary shock to, well, shock her. It makes her scream and the sound hurts his heart more than his ears, but he keeps reminding himself that this is to _help_ her. 

He stands over her, preparing to knock her out, when he sees she’s crying. He stops, and so do her tears. One quake sends him flying, and he feels his ribs break when he hits the ground. 

Lincoln stops, not just because of the pain of his ribs, but because seeing Daisy, seeing his power flickering around her, _hurting_ her, seeing the tears that ran down her cheeks, freezes him in place. It’s not a good idea. It will undoubtedly end in his death, because she’s under orders she can’t refuse, but he _can’t_ see that sight again. A wave of dizziness overtakes him and he falls back to the ground and he stays there, because he’s made up his mind.

She’s pinned him, now, and it reminds him of a moment not too long ago, when she pinned him to the floor of the training room and he didn’t mind at all because she was above him, sweaty and laughing and haloed by the ceiling lights, and she was beautiful. She’s beautiful now, too, even as he watches her sob before punching him across the face. He tries not to look away, even as she hits him again, because if he’s going to die, he wants her to be the last thing he sees.

If he’s going to die, going by Daisy’s hand is how he wants to leave. The irony of being killed by the person he needs to live is something that makes him crack a smile. The smile breaks when his lip splits. 

“Daisy,” he manages to whisper, his voice as awful as he feels. “Daisy.”

“ _Shut up_ .” Her voice is murderous and mournful and it hurts more than her bloody fist. “I tried to spare you. I _tried_ to _save_ you, and you didn’t let me! This—” 

Hit.

“Is—”

Hit. He feels something break.

“Your—”

Hit. He never thought he would go at the hand of someone he loved. _Loves._

“ _Fault!_ ”

Suddenly, her weight is lifted. He can barely open his eyes, but he manages, and he thinks he worsens an already broken rib trying to sit up when he sees that Lash has grabbed Daisy by the shoulders and thrown her away from him. 

“ _Daisy_!” 

May grabs him and pulls him down, holding an arm over his chest in an attempt to keep him from struggling. He struggles anyways, ignoring the pain to the best of his ability. “ _No,_ May I can’t lose her, not to him, not another one, _no,_ don’t let him—”

“He’s trying to save her, Lincoln, just hold on.” Her voice is the most frantic Lincoln has ever heard from her, but he can hear the truth in her words, and in the shape he’s in, he’s not going to be able to escape her. He slumps against her, entirely unable to hold himself up, and watches with both fear and hope in his heart as Lash stands over Daisy, a hand over her heart. He can’t look away, not even as she tries to move, not even as his hand starts glowing blue.

When it’s over, Lash picks her up, an arm under her shoulders and an arm under her knees, and carries her to Lincoln. He sets her down across Lincoln’s lap and Lincoln resists the urge to cry when he sees how pale and broken she is. Lash makes eye contact and for a monster, he looks surprisingly apologetic. He nods, and walks away. 

Lincoln never sees him again.

But he doesn’t worry about that, because Daisy is waking up now, coughing violently. Lincoln wraps his arms around her, trying his best to support her weight and only able to because of May supporting his. She opens her eyes, looks at Lincoln, and he watches the exact moment she returns to herself. 

“ _Oh,_ ” she cries softly. “Oh God, _Lincoln_.”

Lincoln’s heart breaks, and he doesn’t even try to hide his tears. He cries openly, leaning his forehead down to rest on hers, and she’s crying, too. She twists her hands into his shirt, her whole body shaking violently. 

“We need to go,” May says, and she sounds apologetic, which is new. Lincoln nods and with her help, and the help of someone else, he thinks it’s Mack? he stands with Daisy still in his arms, and it hurts like _hell_ , but he thinks if he lets her go, he’ll be letting himself go as well. It’s why he clings tighter to her when Coulson heads their way, reaching for Daisy. 

After what seems like the shortest and the longest walk of his life, he slides against the wall of the quinjet to sit down, Daisy cradled against his chest, their foreheads still touching. 

“Lincoln,” she cries, “Lincoln, I’m so _sorry,_ I’m so sorry, I’m so—”

He shushes her gently, holds her cheek with one hand and rubs away her tears. “Not your fault. Daisy, that wasn’t your fault.”

She touches a spot on his face and he hisses, realizing only as she touches it that it’s bleeding. With a soft cry, she turns her face into his shirt. “It’s just like my vision,” she whispers. “Like my nightmares. And _I_ did that.”

“ _No_ ,” Lincoln refuses. He combs her hair away from her face and kisses her forehead. “No. Hive did this. You wouldn’t.”

“I _did. Fuck_ , I _did_ this, I hurt you _._ ” She shivers and clings to him tighter. “How can you even look at me?” She struggles against his hold for a moment, as if just realizing where she is, but Lincoln doesn’t let go, and she wraps her arms around his neck and her fingers twist into his hair. “Lincoln, I— _God,_ I’m _horrible_ , I _hurt_ you and so many people, oh _God_.”

Lincoln shakes his head. “This isn’t your fault and I _refuse_ to let you believe it is. Daisy, I convinced you of something like this once before. I’ll do it again.”

She sobs, once. “I’m not worth that.”

He remembers those exact words leaving his mouth, and he cries, too. “I can’t help it,” he rasps. “I love you, and I love you, and I can’t help it. And it’s not your fault.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi again! if u want to talk abt aos i'm on twitter @ dcisyjohnsons!
> 
> im posting this at midnight my time if theres any mistakes thats between me and god :D


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